Abstract
This study was conducted to investigate effect of nutrition ducation on consumption of processed food and personality of middle school students. The subjects of this study consisted of 210 middle school students in Busan. Thirty subjects of them applied for study participants and received nutritional education for 8 weeks. Nutritional intake level, preference and intake frequency of processed food, and a link between personality characteristics and intake frequency of processed food were surveyed for 210 middle school students. After nutritional education, the changes of preference and intake frequency of processed food, the changes between personality characteristics and intake frequency of processed food and the changes of serum mineral level were investigated for thirty applicants. The study found that nutritional intake level of 210 middle school students satisfies for estimated average requirement (EAR) of Vitamin A, Vitamin B1, niacin, P and Zn, but it did not satisfy for estimated average requirement of Ca, Fe, K, Vitamin C, Folate. The study also found that middle school students ingested over 3 times of sodium EAR and the study showed that milk, dairy products, processed meat products, noodles, breads, and cake & confectionary had the highest level of preference. The study showed that the highest intake frequency of processed food was ''3 or 4 days a week'' and processed food group was 42.4% of ''processed meat products'', 38.1 % of ''processed fish products'', 36.7% of ''frozen food'', 33.8% of ''sauces'', 52.5% of '' noodles'', and 38.1% of ''cake and confectionary''. According to the study result about the relation between personality characteristics and intake of processed food, people who had relatively low stability, sociality and responsibility and had relatively high dominance and impulsivity had a high intake frequency of processed meat products, frozen foods, noodles, cake and confectionary, and beverages. Questionnaire was categorized into student''s consumption of processed food and personality characteristic, and serum mineral level was determined to examine the relevance between personal characteristic and serum mineral. The consumption of processed foods such as meat & meat product, frozen food, noodle, bread & snack and drink has been significantly dropped after nutrition education. In addition, the change of personality characteristic has shown that stability, governmentality, sociality and responsibility became higher, and impulsiveness became lower with significance (p<0.05), being compared before and after nutrition education. The group with low stability has shown high consumption on meat & meat product, noodle, bread & snack and drink, while group with high stability represents high consumption on milk & dairy product. The group with low impulsiveness has shown high consumption on canned foods, while group with high impulsiveness represents high consumption on meat & meat product, frozen food, noodle, bread & snack. The concentrations of serum mineral after nutrition education show that Na has been decreased while other concentrations of minerals including Ca, Fe, Zn, Mg and K turn out to be increased compared with before nutrition education. The nutrition education and establishment of educational programs keeping the balanced dietary habits for middle school students could not only appear to make them get along with healthy dietary habits, but also change their personality characteristics.